Friday, September 5, 2014

Garlic & Shallots 2014 - The Results

I harvested my garlic back in mid-July and hung it in the garage
to dry.This past weekend, I finally got
around to cleaning, trimming & weighing it.The results are in and they are not overly impressive.I planted 95 cloves of garlic & my total
harvest was 2,314 grams (5 lb 2 oz).That averages out to 24 grams (less than 1 oz) per bulb.

So let’s go back to the beginning.In 2011, I purchased 5 varieties of garlic from
Salt Spring Seeds - one softneck (Ichelium Red) and four hardnecks (Persian
Star, Czech, Salt Spring Select and Porcelain).The cloves were planted that fall (in a newly built bed) & the
results were only slightly better than this year, although at the time, I
considered it to be a good harvest. I
planted 51 cloves and harvested 1,366 grams (3 lbs) – an average of 27 grams per bulb.

Then in the fall of 2012, I planted cloves from the largest
bulbs of each variety.But I made two
mistakes.Firstly I didn’t add any extra
amendments to the soil other than compost.I thought the compost would be enough - it wasn’t.I found out later that alliums are heavy
feeders.Secondly, I spaced the cloves
too close together, using a 4” spacing (the prior year I used 6").My
golden shallots were planted in the same bed as the garlic & I made the
same mistakes with them.

My harvest last year was beyond dismal – I harvested 100
bulbs with a total weight of 1,446 grams (3 lbs 3 oz).That’s an average of 14 grams per bulb – eek!

So last fall, when I prepared the garlic/shallot bed, I
amended the soil with compost and manure.I also increased the spacing for the garlic to 5 inches.I planted one row of 19 cloves for each variety
and, of course, I used cloves from the largest bulbs.Mind you, the bulbs (and cloves) were
significantly smaller than what I had started out with the prior year.

Out of the 5 varieties I grew, only 2 will be kept &
planted again this fall.Both of these performed
better than the original planting back in 2011, even with all my mistakes since
then.I’m optimistic that these will do
even better once I have my methods nailed down.

Porcelain

Porcelain

Average bulb size: 2012 – 34g / 2013 – 29g / 2014 – 45g

Largest Bulb (2014): 58 grams

Persian Star

Persian Star

Average bulb size:2012 – 20g / 2013 – 14g / 2014 – 25g

Largest bulb (2014): 40 grams

The remaining 3 varieties did very poorly, with minimal
improvements since last year.

Salt Spring Select

Salt Spring Select

Average bulb size:2012 – 38g / 2013 – 13g / 2014 - 15g

Largest bulb (2014): 24 grams

Czech

Czech

Average bulb size:2012 – 28g / 2013 – 15g / 2014 - 19g

Largest bulb (2014): 34 grams

Ichelium Red

Ichelium Red

Average bulb size:2012 – 20g / 2013 – 7g (no kidding) / 2014 - 13g

Largest bulb (2014): 20 grams

And now I get to my final mistake – a mistake I didn’t
realize I was making until this year.When
I do research on how to grow a particular crop, I turn to a variety of sources.More often than not, recommendations
are all over the place and I find conflicting information.Then I have to use my judgment in deciding which
information to use for my particular situation.

My notes indicated that I should harvest garlic when the
bottom two leaves had died back.And I
had done this in the past…sort of.I was
always so busy with other things at garlic harvest time that I usually left
them a bit longer than I wanted to and then I would be all worried that they
had stayed in the ground too long.But
they always turned out fine.

This year I was much more on the ball – which, as it turns
out, was not such a good thing for the garlic.I harvested it exactly when I was supposed to – when the bottom two
leaves had died back.

Garlic Just Before Harvest

However, when I cleaned
up the cured bulbs, they all seemed to have loose skins.

I wasn’t exactly sure what this meant – perhaps the bulbs
were rotting?But when I cracked open a
couple of bulbs, the cloves were nice & firm - it was only the outer wrapper that was loose. I had a hard time finding any reference to this on the internet until I came to one site that stated that if the bulb isn’t sufficiently mature, it will not fill out the skins.And I think that is what happened here.So my notes are being revised – Next year, I will
wait until the bottom 3-4 leaves (about 50-75% of the leaves) have died back
before harvesting.

And, even though I realize that the three poorest performing
garlic varieties may have done better had I left them in the ground another
couple of weeks, I have decided to replace them this fall.Which is not a bad thing since there are
several varieties I keep hearing about that I would love to try, so this is the
perfect opportunity.

Now on to the Golden shallots. Unlike the garlic, these were harvested at the perfect time.They were nicely filled out & firm.

Cured Shallots on Chicken Wire Drying Rack

The original bulbs
were also purchased & planted in the fall of 2011.I forgot to note how many bulbs were planted
but I do recall that the package did not contain that many and they were all quite
small.In July 2012, I harvested 27
bulbs averaging 10 grams per bulb.Since
I was trying to build my stock, I planted all 27 of them in the fall using a 5”
spacing.This resulted in a harvest of
68 bulbs with an average weight of 9 grams – the total harvest was 602 grams.

Last year I planted the largest 24 bulbs, 6” apart, in two
staggered rows.And this year the
results were much more impressive (last years #'s are in brackets for easier comparison):

Total Bulbs Planted = 24 (27)

Harvest total = 1,286 grams (602 grams)

Total # of bulbs harvested = 81 (68)

Average bulb weight = 16 grams (9 grams)

2014 Golden Shallot Harvest

Why two vessels for the shallots?Two words - insect damage.The pan on the right contains shallots that
have evidence of insect damage and as such, these will be for immediate use.The damage on these is superficial, as far as
I can tell.

Surface Insect Damage

The Same Bulb on the Inside

There were 8 bulbs that had severe damage & these were
tossed (and not included in the totals):

8 Shallots had Significant Damage

The odd thing was, I am certain (I think???) that I didn’t see
any such damage when I originally dug up the shallots and set them on the rack
to cure.

Has anyone ever had their alliums damaged while they were
curing?The Camelot shallots I grew from
seed are fine – no insect damage at all.And the onions that are currently curing in the garage seem to be ok as
well.

Unfortunately, many of the larger shallots – those I would
have normally set aside to plant in the fall – showed some damage. Superficial or not, I would rather plant only perfect shallot bulbs. Thankfully, many of these were an ok size –
definitely better than those I used last year – so I won’t need to purchase
new planting stock this year.

This Years Planting Stock

I will close with a couple of photos of my new onion curing
setup which was inspired by Daphne in her “Rebuilding
the Onion Rack” post at the beginning of August.

Onion Curing Rack

The rack is resting on 3 sawhorses in the garage. This system is so much more
space efficient then laying the onions on the
ground on top of newspaper. It also provides significantly better air circulation. The bamboo poles are 6' long and attached with zip ties to two 4' long pieces on either end and one in the middle for added support.

Zip Ties Attach the Bamboo to the Supporting Middle & End Poles

I spaced the bamboo roughly “two finger widths apart”, which
is about 1¼” – 1 ½”.This is wide enough
to easily get the stems in between the poles, but narrow enough to hold even
the smaller onions.Any onions that are less
than 1½” across are not cured anyhow but go straight to the kitchen to get used up
first.

Bamboo Was Spaced Approximately Two Finger Widths Apart

And once the onions are cured, I can simply stand the rack up
against a wall for storage.

This setup was
also a good excuse to buy the sawhorses, which are collapsible and I got for a
STEAL at Canadian Tire - $9.99 each!How
convenient it will be to simply lay a piece of plywood across two of them when
I need a makeshift table in the garage, which seems to happen quite often.And up until now I had been using piled up
boxes & buckets to balance long pieces of wood when cutting them with the
mitre saw.No more of that!

Till next time…

“Enjoy the little things, for one day you may look back and realize they were the big things” ~~ Robert Brault

10 comments:

Very thorough notes--I enjoyed this tremendously. And I'm impressed---you LEARN from your mistakes. Seems I often make the same ones over and over---despite notes and reprimands to myself.Have a wonderful weekend. You have a lovely harvest!

Oh, thanks Sue! I try to learn anyhow but sometimes I forget to write things down or I don't go over my old notes as well as I should & then when things go wrong I think - oh yeah - that happened last year....and then I make a BIGGER note ;)

I love the photo of your rack. It is much nicer than mine was. I made mine because I had no space for anything else. But I found it is really nice if you like to braid your onions as the leaves are straight up. Before I'd have to let the onions only partially dry before braiding so the leaves wouldn't break off. But I did it this year with totally dry onion leaves I think they will store better that way.

I've never heard of onions getting insect damage during storage. But we may have different insects here.

Thanks Daphne...and thanks so much for the inspiration for it. Before you did that post I was trying to come up with some type of contraption that hung from the ceiling. This turned out to be much easier to build and will likely do a much better job. As for the damage - it very well may have been there when I pulled the shallots but, as I had never experienced garlic or shallot damage before, I didn't even think to look for it.

I’m sorry that your garlic didn’t do as well as you had hoped. I always enjoy reading the garlic descriptions in the seed catalogs – it’s like describing fine wine. Territorial Seed Company says that their Siberian garlic “will warm your soul on the coldest winter evening.” I’ve only had the standard grocery store variety, but eventually I would like to try different kinds of garlic. Do you think the seed catalog descriptions are over-stated, or are some varieties truly sumptuous?

"Warming your soul on the coldest winter evening" is perhaps a bit much, but I do find that homegrown garlic is MUCH better than store bought garlic. Even after several months in storage, it is "crisp", moist, aromatic & extremely flavourful. I haven't found a huge difference in taste between the varieties that I have grown, but then again I haven't really done a side by side comparison with them. I would definitely throw a few cloves in the ground this fall, just to give it a try. And I can tell you, even if your bulbs turned out as tiny as mine, you would still be impressed with the flavour & texture.

Excellent information on the garlic lessons learned and good timing - I should be planting next year's crop in the next 4-6 weeks. I always use the biggest cloves I can find but I think I might be planting them too close together as well. I keep promising myself I will keep notes but do a poor job of it. Lucky I can rely on great gardening bloggers like yourself to teach me how to do things properly!

Thanks Susie! As gardeners we are constantly learning - especially from each other. I was actually at the Stratford Garlic Festival today (LOVED it!!) and one of the guys there says that he spaces the cloves 8"-10" apart. That's a bit too much for my limited garden space right now but I will probably experiment with wider spacing as I add more beds.

I grew a few garlics this year for the first time in a few years. The last time I Left them in the ground too long (thinking you left them like onion for the stem to fall over) and they rotted. I did get a reasonable harvest this year based on what I planted but have already run out. That's good advice to look for the first four leaves to turn brown, if only I'd known those years ago! Think I'll start afresh next year and start saving cloves too. I like the onion rack too, a project for the future if I ever get organised and have a bigger space for drying :)

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